Sundance 2024 Takeaways: Fewer Oscar Movies, Slower Sales and Some Horror Hits

variety.com:

Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story” and “Will & Harper” received emotional standing ovations, while “A Real Pain” and “It’s What’s Inside” defied the odds to score multimillion-dollar deals.

As it enters its fifth decade, Sundance hasn’t lost its ability to excite us. But it needs to hustle to keep up with the changing times. Documentaries’ Big Comeback It’s been six years since “RBG” and “Three Identical Strangers” launched in Sundance before taking the box office by storm.

Except for music docs like “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” and “Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé,” the theatrical market for nonfiction movies has collapsed.

Plus, Netflix and Apple aren’t as willing to plunk down the hefty checks they did when they handed megadeals to “Knock Down the House” and “Boys State.” But two of the biggest films at this year’s festival — “Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story,” an intimate portrait of the actor and advocate, and “Will & Harper,” with Will Ferrell learning about the trans experience from his close friend Harper Steele — were documentaries poised to be among Sundance’s largest sales. Sales Slowdown … And still they waited.